Sunday, August 8, 2010

Day 5-August 6th

It is so hard to keep up on all of this blogging! haha--I'm going to try my best and get caught up now that we are officially back into civilization! ;)

ok, Day 5--that was Crazy Horse, Needles Highway, and the Badlands

Crazy Horse was interesting...we got there just after 9a which made it really nice because we beat most of the crowds.

They have an orientation video that you watch first and then there is a Native American museum followed by more info about Crazy Horse and the guy behind it (sorry, I cant remember his name), a museum of his home and also the sculpting studio. Overall it was really neat, although--it's not really comparable to Mt. Rushmore. Perhaps the patriotism behind Mt. Rushmore tugs at the heart strings a little more or maybe since Crazy Horse isnt actually finished Im not as excited about it. But, it still is cool and is really amazing. The statue is just huge! It appears smaller than it actually is, but you have to remember that the statue is like a mile away. Here are a couple of pictures:

what Crazy Horse looks like today

what it looks like with a scaled sculpture in front of it

and how it's all going to fit on the rock when it's finished!

Anyways, after Crazy Horse we headed back to our little cabin, loaded up and drove Needles Highway on our way out of town. Needles Highway was definitely cool and Sylvan lake at the top was super pretty!

here is a pictures from needles highway...

there are "needles" like this one all the way up the mountain!

and here is Sylvan Lake, which is what you seeat the top of needles highway. so pretty! :)

Then we drove to the Badlands....this drive was only about 3 hours which made is really nice considering a lot of our days have been between 6 and 10 hours of driving. So, I took a nap for part of the way there and woke up just in time to go to Wall Drug!! Wall Drug is HUGE!! I imagined it to be one store, but no--it has basically turned into a version of a mall except you are in the middle of nowhere in Wall, SD.

"thumbs up" from Wall Drug in Wall, SD

After Wall Drug we headed into Badlands National Park and were immediately blown away but the landscape....it was GORGEOUS. Unbelievable, in fact...it was unreal! I immediately started snapping pictures and was so so so glad we decided to make this one of our stops. (thanks Jana!) We checked into our cabin, and shortly after decided to go on a hike. So we went out on the "Notch Hike" and I once again was blown away at how beautiful it all was. Here are some pictures! (sorry if its too many.....it was just so cool looking!)

one of the views as we were driving into the park...so pretty!

more driving into the park....

Walker at the beginning of our hike!

me and the Badlands.

the beautiful canyon at the end of our hike.....

So, after finishing up the GORGEOUS hike we headed to the restaraunt at the lodge and each had a buffalo indian taco. Its fry bread with seasoned buffalo meat and other goodies.....so good! Super intense though...we were barely able to finish! See the pic?! :)

indian buffalo taco!

Went back to our cabin after that and relaxed until we felt tired enough to go to sleep and hit the pillow hard after setting the alarm for 4a.....next stop: Arden Hills, MN!

(note: I have everything all written up through today but need to upload pictures onto my computer so hang tight for the Arden Hills and Chicago update tomorrow.)